| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: included between 1789 and 1799 not a single person stands out who
led or shaped events: neither Louis XVI. nor Mirabeau nor Danton
nor Robespierre. Must we say that it was the French people that
was the real hero of the French Revolution? Yes--provided we see
the French people not as a multitude but as a number of organised
groups.''
And in a recent work M. A. Cochin insists on this conception of
popular action.
``And here is the wonder: Michelet is right. In proportion as
we know them better the facts seem to consecrate the fiction:
this crowd, without chiefs and without laws, the very image of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: "Ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh!
ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!"
My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
"It is nothing," he said, at last.
"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health
is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are
happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no
matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be
responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi--"
"Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not
kill me. I shall not die of a cough."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: the happiness of either sister, or impeaching his own honour,
than that he should prefer Henrietta to Louisa, or Louisa to Henrietta.
Either of them would, in all probability, make him an affectionate,
good-humoured wife. With regard to Charles Hayter, she had delicacy
which must be pained by any lightness of conduct in a well-meaning
young woman, and a heart to sympathize in any of the sufferings
it occasioned; but if Henrietta found herself mistaken in the nature
of her feelings, the alternation could not be understood too soon.
Charles Hayter had met with much to disquiet and mortify him
in his cousin's behaviour. She had too old a regard for him
to be so wholly estranged as might in two meetings extinguish
Persuasion |
